Advertising–Annoying and Occasionally an Amazing Time Saver

When scrolling through Instagram or Facebook or even watching a youtube video do you ever get confused about why you are seeing an ad that has no connection or uses to you at all? Or maybe an ad about a sale on a jacket you were looking at on amazon a day before? Well, me too, and at this point, it is becoming more and more well known that your digital footprint is tracked for targeted advertising whether that be on amazon, an airline website, or just youtube.

When it comes to advertising targeted ads on the internet are probably one of the first things you think of and well they can lead to some fun or even helpful ads. For instance, just recently I got a new 3D printer that I have been looking forward to getting. Since it would allow me to build higher quality prints. Once I fully assembled the printer and was ready to print I went online and went to google what type of file my printer uses, and I got a targeted ad for the software for the printer that I needed and it came with a basic tutorial and a file converter. All in the software with an included demo video to show how to run the software. This ad was one that I am very thankful for and enabled some of my favorite things I have printed to be made and fast-tracking a process that may have taken days to find the right software.

Another great example is Like my 7th grade year of middle school when I got my first 3D printer. The day before I got my first printer, I was looking for 3D printing software because I was going to try and design something to print at my school for my uncle. The next day I got a surprise gift and it was a 3D printer. At that point, I started building the printer immediately and while I was assembling it, I got stuck trying to figure out why something wasn’t working so as one does I go online to google the problem. But when I go onto Microsoft edge the first thing without even looking anything up I get lucky really lucky, and I see a youtube video recommendation for the build tutorial for the exact printer I was assembling. That enabled me to figure out that I needed to remove a small flat plastic safety restraint that’s used for shipping and transporting the printer which was something I would never see because of where it was located.

Now because of these two situations I think at this point targets are pretty accurate when it comes to 3D printing, But when it comes to everything else I don’t think I have seen an ad that has ever interested me online ever, and because of this. I don’t think advertisers really know me as well as they think I do, which leads to a lot of ads that mean nothing like bird feed and I don’t own anything or do anything online that would have anything to do with birds.

“3D Printer” by gonzafoles is licensed under CC BY 2.0